Stethoscopes have long been used by physicians to monitor auscultatory sounds. Typically stethoscopes have been comprised of a head or chestpiece, a sound transmission mechanism and an earpiece assembly. The chestpiece is adapted to be placed against the skin of a patient for gathering the auscultatory sounds. The sound transmission mechanism transmits the gathered sound to the earpiece where the physician may monitor the sound.
The chestpiece of conventional auditory stethoscopes are usually quite simple physically. They are usually round disk shapes sometimes dual sided, top and bottom with a diaphragm covering one side, to allow either side of the chestpiece to contact the skin of the patient for the gathering of auscultatory sounds in different frequency ranges.
Recently, the auditory sound gathering, transmission and delivery functions of stethoscopes have been supplemented or supplanted by electronic gathering or transmission.
The incorporation of electronic circuitry into the stethoscope has been a considerable design problem for the engineer. Typically, the electronic circuitry increases the physical size of the stethoscope package. Typically, either the size of the chestpiece is increased in size dramatically or an additional enclosure to house the electronics is located between the chestpiece and earpiece or both. In both of these cases, the resulting stethoscope is bulky, cumbersome to use and not easily storable between uses. The result, thus, is a stethoscope which is distinctly not ergonometric.